County colours (Gaelic games)

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The county colours (Irish: dathanna na gcontaetha)^[1][2] of an Irish county are the colours of the kit worn by that county's representative team in the inter-county competitions of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), the most important of which are the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship and the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. Fans attending matches often wear replica jerseys, and wave flags and banners in the county colours. In the build-up to a major match, flags and bunting are flown or hung from cars, buildings, telegraph poles, and other fixtures across the county, especially in those regions where GAA support is strong.

Where a county's jersey is multi-coloured, these are the county colours. Where the jersey is a single colour, the colour of the shorts is also included. Shorts were always white until Down wore black shorts in the 1968 football final against Kerry, for better contrast in the black-and-white RTÉ telecast.^[3] Despite colour telecasts' 1971 arrival,^[4] other counties switched from white shorts, such as Dublin's now familiar navy blue.

In the early years of the All-Ireland championships, each county was formally represented by the club which won its county championship; players from other clubs within the county were soon added to reinforce the squad, and gradually from 1900 county committees took over the selection of the team. At that date most inter-county teams still wore the kit of the champion club, but by 1910 some counties had adopted a standard strip.^[5] The 1913 GAA Congress passed a motion proposed by P. D. Mehigan and seconded by Harry Boland, "That a distinctive county colour be compulsory for inter-county, inter-provincial and All-Ireland contests, such colours to be approved of by the Provincial Councils concerned and registered with Central Council."^[6]